: 6) I do not see a problem with what Cortana said to Foe Hammer. She wanted a
: pick up and quickly. Foe Hammer is a Marine and Cortana and the MC are
: superior to her (or at least the chain of command goes through them) and a
: long description is not necessary. Given an order, I would expect a
: soldier to follow and not question the details.

Okay. You just knew I was going to zero in on this.... :-)

I've mentioned this on quite a number of occasion throughout the whole thread, but it's getting a bit bloated now for reading in it's entirety.

So, let me see if I can lay this all out more clearly:

Cortana says to Foe Hammer:

"Negative, negative! We have a wildcat destabilization of the ship's fusion core. The engines must have sustained more damage than we thought!"

Her tone and pharasing imply that a 'wildcat destabilization' is indicative of causing 'more damage than we thought'.

Agreed?

But here's the first quandary. Cortana *wanted* this to happen. It was her primary objective.

As she says earlier:

"Analyzing. Fusion reactor number one destabilizing. Use explosives on the other three reactors. That should be enough to trigger a wildcat explosion of the engines."

So why is she now billing it to Foe Hammer as something sudden and unexpected?

Second issue:

The line, 'The engines must have sustained more damage than we thought!'.

Again, this is aimed at Foe Hammer, not the MC. Given that such a comment would only make sense to the MC since he's fully aware of what's going on, why does Cortana say this to Foe Hammer.

We have been given no indication of any prior communication between Cortana and Foe Hammer regarding the plan to detonate the PoA's engines. If Foe Hammer was aware of the plan, the comment would make sense to her. If she *isn't* aware of the plan, and there's nothing to indicate that she is, then the comment would only serve to make her speculate on the reasons for the meltdown. And in that scenario, Cortana has effectively misdirected Foe Hammer as to the real reason.

At the end of the day, the question is, why did Bungie include this line? From a game play perspective, they could have removed it and nobody would have noticed. From a game play perspective, it's irrelevant. So why include it? It effectively adds nothing, and therefore it makes no sense to put that line in. If it was directed at the MC, it would mean something, but would still be irrelevant to the game play.

The fact that it is there, and is directed at a character for whom it only fuels speculation, makes no logical sense.

Unless it's there for a reason.

Sorry, if you find that a bit long-winded, but it's these two key points that keep coming back to bug me.